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A  SECTION   OF   THE   CITY  OF   DENVER,   CAPITAL  OF  COLORADO,   AND   COMMERCIAL   AND 
INDUSTRIAL   CENTER   OF  THE   ROCKY   MOUNTAIN  REGION 

(The  tunnel  described  in  the  following  article  pierces  the  Rockies  at  a  point  just  to  the  left  of  the  tower  in  the  center 

of  this  picture) 

COLORADO'S  GREAT  TUNNEL 

BY  WAYNE  C.  WILLIAMS 


THE  city  of  Denver — with  counties  lying 
adjacent — is  about  to  begin  construc- 
tion of  a  six-mile  tunnel  under  the  Rocky 
Mountains.  It  will  be  the  longest  tunnel 
in  North  America  and  will  connect  the 
eastern  and  western  slopes  of  Colorado. 
It  is  primarily  a  municipal  project  and  has 
a  genuine  interest  to  American  municipali- 
ties. Many  of  our  municipalities  are  under- 
taking engineering  projects,  some  involving 
utilities,  others  a  new  use  of  water-power, 
docks,  sewage  or  railroads  (as  in  the  case 
of  Cincinnati) ;  but  no  American  city  has  as 
yet  undertaken  to  construct  a  tunnel  of  the 
dimensions  and  extent  involved  in  this 
project. 

It  will  be  called  the  Moffat  Tunnel,  and 
therein  lies  the  romance  of  the  project. 
In  order  to  understand  this  vast  municipal 
undertaking,  let  us  begin  at  the  beginning: 
We  shall  take  two  facts,  one  physical  and 
one  commercial.  Colorado  is  bisected  from 
north  to  south  by  the  great  Continental 
Divide — the  Rocky  Mountains.  These 
American  Alps  are  a  vast  mountain  chain 
dividing   the   two   sections   of    the   State. 


Wonderful  as  they  are — snowy  peaks  and 
rocky  canons  of  surpassing  beauty;,  moun- 
tain parks  that  form  the  chief  playgrounds 
of  America;  vast  glaciers  that  melt  and 
yield  swiftly  running  streams  to  feed  the 
plains  below  and  make  cool  temperatures  for 
the  city  of  Denver  and  the  other  cities  of 
the  State — all  this  Colorado  has  by,  right  of 
Nature,  by  physical  location;  but  the 
mountains  are  a  formidable  barrier  to  rail- 
roading. No  satisfactory  tunnel  facilities 
exist  for  any  railroad  in  Colorado  and  in- 
deed no  real  tunnel  facilities  can  now  be 
said  to  exist  at  all.  Every  practical  railroad 
man  will  understand  at  once  the  difficulties 
of  moving  trains  over  high  mountain 
passes,  with  snowdrifts,  grades,  and  storms 
to  encounter.  The  Continental  Divide 
forms  a  huge  barrier  to  complete  and  satis- 
factory commercial  and  intellectual  inter- 
course and  to  travel  between  the  two 
sections. 

The  commercial  fact  is  this,  and  it  is  a 
surprising  one:  The  city  of  Denver  is  not 
on  any  direct  transcontinental  railroad  line. 
It  lies  off  the  beaten  path — so  to  speak — of 


V 


/ 1^ 


402 


THE  AMERICAN  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 


transcontinental  railway  routes.  Its  amaz- 
ing ^owth  into  a  great  and  beautiful  city, 
its  premiership  among  all  the  cities  of  the 
Rocky  Mountain  region,  its  absorption  of 
the  business  of  the  great  West,  has  come 
about,  not  because  of  its  railroad  facilities 
but  in  spite  of  a  lack  of  them.  For  a  genera- 
tion the  city  has  been  under  this  handicap, 
and  for  even  a  longer  period  its  far-sighted 
leaders  of  business  and  finance  sought  to 
put  Denver  on  a  transcontinental  line. 

Foremost  among  all  these  men  was 
David  H.  Moffat,  pioneer  banker,  railroad 
president  and  empire-builder.  Other  plans 
failing,  Mr.  Moffat  determined  at  last  to 
build  the  line  himself,  and  one  day  he 
startled  the  business  world,  both  of  Denver 
and  New  York,  by  announcing  that  he 
would  build  a  railroad  over  the  Continental 
Divide.  Moreover,  he  began  at  once  to 
bmld  it.  Day  by  day  the  steel  rails  pushed 
steadily  forward  until  one  crowning  day 
Mr.  Moffat  and  a  party  of  his  friends  stood 
at  the  top  of  the  Continental  Divide,  at 
Corona  Pass.  He  had  overcome  Nature's 
barrier  and  built  to  the  eternal  snows. 

Then  came  obstacles.  The  great  rail- 
roads that  have  their  centers  in  New  York 
were  determined  that  Mr.  Moffat  should  not 
build  a  transcontinental  line  to  take  busi- 
ness away  from  their  own  lines.  They 
blocked  lum  in  his  efforts  to  get  money  in 
the  East.  At  every  turn  he  found  himself 
thwarted.  Determined  to  realize  his  ambi- 
tion to  give  Denver  a  transcontinental  rail- 


^lt^;K..WY0tM4,NG  I- 


Vj     .  NEBRASKA 


! TEXAS 


I    NEW    MEXICO    I 


PUTTING  DENVER  ON  THE  TRANSCONTI- 
NENTAL RAILROAD  MAP 

(The  heavy  black  line  shows  approximately  the  location 
of  the  proposed  railroad  improvement 


road  connection  he  threw  his'  own  personal 
fortune  into  the  scales,  but  even  this  did  not 
avail.  Mr.  Moffat  died  almost  penniless 
without  his  dream  being  realized,  and  for 
years  it  seemed  that  it  never  could  be 
brought  to  fruition.  The  railroad  stopped 
at  the  edge  of  the  untapped  resources  of 
Northwestern  Colorado  and  has  since  eked 
out  a  precarious  existence. 

Meanwhile  the  Moffat  dream  would  not 
lie  quiet.  Foremost  among  those  who  had 
helped  Mr.  Moffat  was  Mr.  William  G. 
Evans,  president  of  the  Denver  Tramway 
Company,  leading  capitahst  and  financier; 
the  son  of  the  late  governor,  John  Evans  of 
Colorado,  who  founded  the  NorthAvestern 
University  and  the  University  of  Denver. 
Mr.  Evans  has  been,  and  now  is,  untiring 
in  his  efforts  to  promote  the  tunnel.  Other 
Denver  and  Colorado  business  men  tried 
to  secure  State  aid  for  a  tunnel;  for  it  was 
seen  that  only  with  a  huge  bore  piercing  the 
Continental  Divide  could  the  railroad  be 
made  successful.  The  legislature  first 
passed  a  tunnel  bill  to  provide  this  great 
improvement,  but  the  courts  held  that  the 
State  could  not  in  that  way  lend  its  aid  and 
credit  to  the  enterprise.  Then  the  legisla- 
ture submitted  a  proposed  constitutional 
amendment,  creating  a  tunnel  commission 
with  authority  to  build  any  tunnels  needed. 
But  here  a  new  obstacle  was  encountered 
in  the  hostility  of  certain  portions  of  the 
State,  based  on  the  alleged  fear  that  a  tun- 
nel for  a  railroad  out  of  Denver  would  divert 
general  transcontinental  traffic.  They  had 
other  reasons — some  of  them  weighty — but 
this  was  the  paramount  consideration.  The 
tunnel  amendment  was  defeated  by  a  nar- 
row margin.  There  was  but  one  thing  left 
to  do — the  city  of  Denver  and  the  counties 
directly  interested  must  build  the  tunnel. 
No  private  capital  could  be  secured  to 
undertake  it. 

Governor  Oliver  H.  Shoup  called  the  leg- 
islature in  special  session  to  deal  with  this 
situation  and  with  another  physical  emer- 
gency. The  city  of  Pueblo  had  been  devas- 
tated by  a  flood  a  year  ago,  and  needed 
legislation  to  enable  it  to  create  a  flood  dis- 
trict, to  conserve  its  waters  and  avoid  future 
disasters.  The  legislature  passed  two  laws, 
one  creating  a  flood  district  for  the  Arkansas 
River  valley  and  one  creating  a  tunnel  dis- 
trict for  Denver  and  adjacent  counties.  The 
laws  were  patterned  after  the  Miami  con- 
servancy law  in  Ohio.  The  great  disaster  of 
the  Dayton  floods  gave  rise  to  legislation 


COLORADO'S  GREAT  TUNNEL 


403 


there  that  forms  a  landmark  for  all  future 
legislation  of  a  similar  character  in  this 
country. 

After  the  laws  were  enacted,  Governor 
Shoup  at  once  named  a  commission  to 
build  the  tunnel.  The  personnel  of  the 
Commission  and  of  its  consulting  engineers 
is  a  distinguished  one.  The  Commission  is 
headed  by  W.  P.  Robinson  of  Denver,  as 
president.  The  other  members  are  Charles 
McAllister  Willcox,  Charles  J.  Wheeler, 
W.  N.  Blayney  and  Charles  H.  Leckenby. 
Mr.  Leckenby  is  a  prominent  newspaper 
man.  The  others  are  leading 
Denver  business  men.  Mr.  Will- 
cox is  the  head  of  one  of  the 
great  department  stores  of  the 
West,  and  is  the  son  of  General 
Orlando  B.  Willcox,  who  served 
with  distinction  under  General 
Grant  in  the  Civil  War. 

L,  D.  Blauvelt  is  the  engineer, 
and  the  consulting  engineers  are 
David  W.  Brunton,  of  Denver; 
J,  Vipond  Davies,  New  York, 
builder  of  the  Manhattan,  Hud- 
son and  Pennsylvania  tunnels, 
and  J.  Waldo  Smith,  also  of 
New  York.  Mr.  Smith  was 
chief  engineer  and  now  is  con- 
sulting engineer  for  the  New 
York  water-supply  system. 

The  engineers   have   already 
made    trips    of    inspection    to 
the  tunnel  site  and  laid  foundations  for  the 
driving  of  the  great  bore. 

Norton  Montgomery,  a  prominent  Col- 
orado lawyer,  is  the  attorney,  and  former 
State  Senator  George  Lewis,  superintendent 
of  the  great  Portland  Mine  of  Cripple 
Creek,  will  be  the  assistant  to  the  president 
and  in  active  charge  of  the  operations. 

Actual  construction  was  scheduled  to 
begin  about  the  first  of  September,  and  will 
not  cease  until  the  work  is  done.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  it  will  require  four  years  to  com- 
plete the  work,  over  six  hundred  men  being 
regularly  employed  during  that  period. 
The  tunnel  will  start  about  fifty  miles  from 
Denver,  just  above  the  town  of  Tolland  on 
the  present  Moffat  road,  and  will  pierce 
the  north  shoulder  of  James  Peak,  one  of 
the  mightiest  monarchs  of  the  main  range. 
The  eastern  portal  starts  at  an  elevation 
of  9, 1  go  feet  and  the  western  portal  is  at  an 
elevation  ot  9,100  feet.  The\unnel  will  be 
6.3  miles  long.  It  will  be  slightly  raised 
near   the  center  and  drained  both   wavs. 


DAVID  H.   MOFFAT 

(For    whom    the    six-mile 

railroad  tunnel  under  the 

Rockies  will  be  named) 


making  the  ends  of  the  tunnel  forty  fe^t 
below  the  highest  point  in  the  interior.  A 
tunnel  bore  eight  by  ten  feet  will  first  be 
driven  and  work  will  begin  at  both  portals 
at  the  same  time.  The  main  tunnel  will  be 
sixteen  feet  wide  and  twenty-four  feet  high; 
it  is  proposed  to  build  a  pioneer  tunnel 
beside  the  main  bore  that  will  aid  in  con- 
struction and  afford  an  aqueduct  to  bring 
the  waters  of  the  western  slope  rivers  to 
Denver  and  to  the  plains  of  eastern  Col- 
orado. This  pioneer  tunnel  will  also  be 
used  to  carry  power,  light  and  compressed 
air  to  ventilate  the  main  tunnel. 
The  construction  problems, 
while  interesting  chiefly  to  en- 
gineers, present  a  number  of 
aspects  that  will  concern  even 
the. lay  reader.  The  tunnel  will 
be  occupied  by  a  single  track 
and  will  be  of  concrete,  where 
possible,  and  timbered  where 
the  rock  is  not  strong  enough  to 
form  the  walls  of  the  tunnel 
itself.  The  builders  of  the  Mof- 
fat Tunnel  are  profiting  by  the 
valuable  experience  of  engineers 
in  constructing  the  Rogers  Pass 
Tunnel  on  the  Canadian  Pacific 
Railway.  This  tunnel  has  been 
completed  some  four  or  five 
years.  It  is  5.2  miles  long  and 
is  at  present  the  longest  railway 
tunnel  in  North  America. 
The  Rogers  Pass  Tunnel,  since  named  the 
Connaught  Tunnel,  is  on  the  main  line  of 
the  Canadian  Pacific  and  pierces  the  Sel- 
kirk range  in  British  Columbia.  Rogers 
Pass  had  a  snowfall  of  from  thirty  to  fifty 
feet  each  winter  and  the  cost  of  operating 
the  road  was  so  heavy  that  the  tunnel 
became  a  necessity.  A  pioneer  tunnel  was 
also  built  in  the  construction  of  Connaught 
Tunnel. 

The  fundamental  construction  conditions 
of  the  two  tunnels  are  much  the  same.  If 
anything  the  Mofi'at  tunnel  presents  more 
difficult  obstacles  than  were  offered  to  the 
engineers  who  constructed  the  big  bore 
through  .  Rogers  Pass.  The  Canadian 
Pacific  Tunnel  builders  had  softer  material 
through  which  to  bore,  this  material  con- 
sisting principally  of  schist,  quartzite,  some 
clay  and  some  talc.  The  material  through 
which  the  Moffat  Tunnel  builders  must 
bore  is  largely  granite. 

The  boring  of  a  huge  tunnel  through  the 
main  range  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  is  not 


404 


THE  AMERICAN  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 


unlike  the  building  of  a  subway,  yet  every 
engineer  will  at  once  recognize  the  fact  that 
the  two  operations  are  not  identical.  The 
difference  in  atmospheric  conditions,  for 
example,  must  be  taken  seriously  into 
account.  A  lighter  air  at  the  high  altitude  of 
the  Rockies  makes  it  necessary  to  compress 
a  greater  volume  in  order  to  get  sufficient 
air  to  the  men  who  are  at  work.  The  air 
will  probably  be  supplied  as  it  was  in  the 
Rogers  Pass  Tunnel,  through  a  wooden 
pipe.  As  an  example  of  the  close  technical 
detail  required  on  the  part  of  the  engineers, 
the  matter  of  supplying  air  furnishes  one 
of  the  most  important  features  of  the  whole 
work — and  the  matter  of  air  for  workmen  is 
not  a  detail  at  all — it  is  a  fundamental. 
Previous  tunnel-builders  have  tried  the  thin 
steel  pipe,  but  the  walls  of  this  pipe  do  not 
hold  up  as  well  as  a  wooden  wall. 

Both  tunnels  will  be  straight.  The 
Rogers  Pass  Tunnel  is  standing  very  well 
indeed,  and  no  difficulties  are  anticipated 
either  in  the  driving  of  the  Moffat  Tunnel 
or  in  its  durability  after  completion. 

The  tunnel  will  cut  out  twenty- three 
miles  of  railroad  over  the  top  of  the  Conti- 
nental Divide,  as  well  as  the  snow-sheds 
and  4  per  cent,  grade.  When  we  remember 
the  engineers'  estimate  that  snow  conditions 
absorb  41  per  cent,  of  the  annual  profits  of 
the  road,  we  can  see  the  financial  significance 
of  the  tunnel. 

When  completed  the  Moffat  Tunnel  will 
be  a  tremendous  physical  monument  to 
American  enterprise,  to  engineering  skill, 
and  to  the  man  whose  name  it  will  bear. 
It  will  make  the  Moffat  road  a  link  in  the 
shortest  transcontinental  railroad  in  Amer- 
ica, and  it  will  put  Denver  on  that  road. 
It  will  directly  and  vitally  affect  trans- 
continental railroading  on  all  lines  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  It  will  be  a  power- 
ful factor  in  carrying  goods  to  the  unlimited 
markets  of  the  Orient,  and  will  help  the 
cities  of  the  Middle  West  and  Northwest 
in  their  struggle  to  avoid  the  serious  compe- 
tition of  shipping  through  the  Panama 
Canal.  The  tunnel  will  enable  the  Denver 
&  Rio  Grande  Western,  which  now  de- 
tours by  a  circuitous  route,  to  reach 
Salt  Lake  and  the  Pacific  coast  by  build- 
ing a  short  cut  and  thus  save  171  miles. 
This  cut-off  will  extend  from  Creston  to 
Dotsero. 

The  tunnel  will  also  insure  the  construc- 
tion of  a  line  from  Salt  Lake  City  to  the 


present  terminus  of  the  Moffat  road  in 
Colorado,  opening  rich  lands  of  the  Uintah 
Basin  in  Utah. 

Certainly  the  most  important  effect  of 
the  tunnel  will  be  the  opening  of  the  vast, 
untouched  resources  of  northwestern  Col- 
orado and  northeastern  Utah.  In  Colorado 
this  is  called  the  "Routt  County  Empire." 
Here  lie  some  of  the  greatest' untouched 
beds  of  anthracite  in  the  world — enough  '• 
coal  to  supply  the  world  for  generations; 
over  two  thousand  square  miles  of  oil  shale 
estimated  to  contain  fifty  billion  barrels  of 
oil;  over  ten  billion  feet  of  timber.  Indeed 
it  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  reason  to 
say  that  the  tunnel  opens  up  the  richest 
single  undeveloped  spot  on  this  continent, 
and  will  pour  the  commerce  of  this  region 
into  the  lap  of  Denver  and  send  new  life- 
blood  through  its  commercial  veins. 

This  vast  municipal  undertaking  is  one 
in  which  other  counties  are  to  share.  The 
entire  Moffat  Tunnel  District,  includes, 
besides  City  and  County  of  Denver,  all  or 
a  portion  of  the  counties  of  Grand,  Moffat, 
Routt,  Eagle,  Gilpin,  Boulder,  Adams  and 
Jefferson. 

Under  the  provisions  of  the  law,  property 
owners  were  given  a  specified  period  within 
which  to  object  to  the  law  or  to  the  project. 
This  period  has  passed  and  not  a  single 
property  owner  in  the  entire  Tunnel  Dis- 
trict has  filed  an  objection  or  a  protest. 
Therefore  there  now  exist  no  obstacles  to 
the  issuance  of  bonds,  or  to  the  commence- 
ment of  the  work  of  construction.  The 
Tunnel  Commission  will  shortly  issue 
bonds  to  pay  for  the  construction  of  the 
tunnel  and  not  only  will  there  be  no  legal 
obstacles  to  the  issuance  of  these  securities, 
but  there  will  be  back  of  them  the  vast 
wealth  of  the  municipality  of  Denver  and 
all  the  private  property  owned  therein  and 
the  wealth  of  all  the  counties  forming  the 
district.  Probably  there  has  been  no  secur- 
ity offered  in  American  markets  in  recent 
years  with  such  a  safe  foundation  as  the 
bonds  of  the  Moffat  Tunnel  will  be  found  to 
possess. 

Thus  it  remains  for  the  city  of  Denver  to 
undertake  one  of  the  greatest  municipal 
projects  ever  known  in  American  histor}^, 
and  the  progress  of  the  tunne  1  and  its 
commercial  and  industrial  possibilities  form 
a  theme  that  is  interesting  to  scientific  men, 
to  capitalists,  to  laborers,  and  to  students 
of  American  municipal  life. 


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